The music's rhythm was so tight it was suffocating. The post-battle settlement screen was clean and efficient, immediately switching back to the exploration view without a moment's delay.
"This... this is on a completely different level from previous RPGs," Kenta muttered to himself, feeling as if the games he'd played over the past decade had all been in vain.
Naoki watched beside him, not daring to blink for fear of missing a single frame. "How is this a game? It's like controlling a Hollywood blockbuster!"
As the story unfolded, high-spec, high-quality CGI animations were seamlessly woven into the experience.
The explosion of the Mako Reactor, the towering flames, the subtle changes in the characters' facial expressions...
This was no longer a game where you had to imagine the scenes while staring at a few pixelated sprites and reading dry dialogue boxes at the bottom of the screen.
This was a movie you could actually play!
On this snowy weekend, countless players across Japan were just like Kenta and Naoki.
They shut themselves in their rooms, forgetting to eat, forgetting to sleep, treating even a trip to the bathroom as an unconscionable waste of time.
They were utterly immersed in that grand world, meticulously woven by Square and safeguarded by Sega's formidable technology, worshiping the dawn of a new era.
Monday, December 16th.
The morning rush hour on the Tokyo Subway was packed as usual with expressionless salarymen and drowsy students.
But if you looked closely, you could sense a strange, electric excitement in the air.
Kenta leaned against the cold glass of the train door, his head nodding in a doze.
His eyes were sunken and dark, the circles beneath them so heavy it looked like he'd been punched twice in the face. He had misbuttoned his school jacket, and a few wisps of adolescent stubble had sprouted on his chin.
Beside him, Naoki took a massive gulp of canned black coffee. The bitter liquid slid down his throat, a desperate attempt to keep his leaden eyelids from closing.
Over the past weekend—forty-eight hours in total—the two of them had slept less than six hours combined.
When they were hungry, they'd just grab a couple of bites of discounted cold rice balls from the convenience store. When they were thirsty, they drank straight from the tap.
The eerie green glow from the TV screen had become the only light in their world for the past two days.
"How far did you get?" Naoki crushed the empty can in his hand and tossed it into the trash with a loud clang. His voice was as hoarse as sandpaper.
Kenta rubbed his stiff, aching neck, feeling his vertebrae creak.
"Just left Midgar. That part with the Shinra Building—" Kenta swallowed hard, his dry throat tightening. As he recalled last night's scenes, his bloodshot eyes suddenly lit up with an unnatural brilliance. "The way the camera panned as Cloud swung that massive Buster Sword and rode his heavy motorcycle crashing through the building's glass—it was absolutely insane! I forgot to breathe!"
The two locked eyes, seeing the same geeky fervor reflected in each other's gaze.
At school, the atmosphere was even more intense than on the subway.
Before the morning bell had even rung, a crowd of a dozen boys had already gathered around the "throne" area in the back row by the window, arguing so fiercely that their faces were flushed red.
"Tifa! It's absolutely Tifa!" A bespectacled boy slammed his heavy backpack onto a desk, his hands tracing an exaggeratedly graceful curve in the air. Spittle flew from his lips as he exclaimed, "You guys just don't get it! That kind of curvaceous figure paired with a melee fighter class—the contrast is just unbeatable! And Sega's engine is so insane; the polygon modeling is so detailed you can see the wrinkles in her clothes and the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes! When I was controlling Cloud talking to her at the Seventh Heaven bar, my hands were shaking!"
"Bullshit! Aerith is the one who's truly divine!" another boy retorted, slamming his hand on the desk, the veins in his neck bulging. "Don't you understand the tragic fate of the flower girl? And in the pre-rendered CGI, that shot of Aerith looking up at the Mako Reactor in the alley—the moment the light hit her face, it was breathtakingly beautiful! Tifa's beauty is worldly, but Aerith is a true goddess!"
The class monitor marched over, blackboard eraser in hand, and rapped the desk sharply, sending a cloud of chalk dust fluttering down.
"Stop arguing! The cleaning crew, go empty the trash! The teacher's about to arrive!"
But the boys, locked in their heated debate, completely ignored the monitor's warning.
"Hey, who's gotten a Chocobo yet? How do you even ride that thing?"
"Ride my ass! I haven't even finished the first disc! Square stuffed so much content into this game it's like a bottomless pit. I spent a whole day just wandering around the Midgar Slums and talking to NPCs!"
"Don't even get me started. I hit five game stores over the weekend and didn't see a single copy—not even an empty box! Scalpers have jacked up the price to nearly double the original. Those bloodsucking vampires!" A boy who'd missed the launch day collapsed onto his desk, letting out a desperate wail.
Kenta shoved his backpack into his already cluttered desk, then slumped forward, burying his face on the tabletop. Only one ear remained exposed to catch the surrounding commotion, his lips curved into the smug smile of a day-one player.
The bell rang, signaling the start of class.
The math teacher began scribbling a complex string of calculus formulas on the blackboard. The monotonous tap-tap-tap of the chalk was like a lullaby, dull and hypnotic.
But below the teacher's line of sight, a secret exchange was in full swing.
Torn scraps of notebook paper flew between desks.
The notes contained no math formulas. Instead, they were covered in game locations, hidden item coordinates, and equipment combinations like "Restore Materia + All Materia" that could fundamentally change the game.
The bell rang, and the previously lifeless classroom instantly erupted into chaos, like boiling water.
Even the popular guys, who usually only cared about underground idol groups and looked down on gaming, couldn't resist crowding around Kenta's desk.
"Kenta, I heard you got the first-day release last Friday! Let me borrow it for a couple of days, and I'll buy you yakisoba bread for a whole week!"
Kenta looked up, pulling his numb arm out from under the weight of the crowd, and glared back like a lone wolf guarding its food.
"Don't even think about it. I just started the second disc myself," he said, sweeping the notes on his desk into his drawer and refusing without a hint of mercy. "Go wait in line at Akihabara yourself. I heard Sega is restocking this afternoon."
At the same time, across the vast Pacific Ocean, in a boys' dorm at a state university in Los Angeles, California.
Despite the bright, blinding California sun outside, the heavy blackout curtains in the dorm were drawn tight, turning the room into a secluded, dimly lit cave.
Scattered across the carpet were leftover boxes of pepperoni pizza, crumpled tissues, and a dozen empty Budweiser cans.
The carpet was strewn with half-eaten pepperoni pizza boxes, crumpled napkins, and a dozen empty Budweiser cans.
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